Chapter Four-Hundred Twenty-Three (Patreon)

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Jana

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She watches the strange automaton scion leave their little group, wondering why Rocky has his hand up, the back of it facing its retreating back.  If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were having some banter.  Then again, with how weird the scions and the dungeon are…

The small swarm left behind makes a sound like loud rain, before a few rising tones and other strange noises, then settles down under the confused gaze of both her and Driough.

“Does it… translate?” asks Driough after a few moments, looking to the zombie for answers.  He grunts, and a moment later, the small swarm speaks with a voice that sounds like it’s within a cavernous helm.  It’s not muffled, but it sounds… strange.

“Yes.”

Jana snorts at the answer, and how curious Driough looks, but Rocky continues before either can ask anything.

“So, what do you two want, specifically?  If you just wanted someone to practice against, I’d’ve met you at the arena instead of here.”

While that’s about what Jana was hoping for, Driough has other ideas.  “I’ve heard you have the title of Affinity Savant?  I’d love to learn more about that.”

Rocky eyes him for a few moments before his grunts get the swarm to translate again.  “Coach knows a lot about how the affinities connect, and it just clicks for me.  I’ve earned a lot of extra affinities.”

It still sounds ridiculous to her, but there’s far too many people backing that claim up for her to dismiss it.  “How?” asks Driough, looking eager.

Rocky eyes her as well before answering.  “Why don’t I show you two?  I can teach the elf how to get fire easily enough.  You wanna match him, Jana, or learn ice instead?”

They both stare at the zombie for a few moments, hardly able to process what he just said.  Driough’s shock gives way to eagerness, but Jana isn’t going to let this nonsense slide without at least a bit of explanation.  “How in the world can you teach an affinity?!”

The zombie smirks as he grunts his answer.  “By knowing how they work.  What did you think Affinity Savant meant?”

Driough snickers at her expense, and his amusement only grows as she glowers at him.  “Fine!  Teach me ice, oh wise Affinity Savant.”

Rocky grins.  “Stay here.  I’ll be back after I get some things.”  He doesn’t even wait for the swarm to finish translating before he steps sideways into one of those shortcuts that are apparently everywhere in this dungeon.  Jana grumbles as she turns to Driough.

“You think this’ll actually work?”

He smiles wide.  “No!  But I really hope it will!  You’ve got to understand, Jana, there are countless theories about what the affinities actually are and how they work.  The current leading one is that they're a divinely ordained organization system for mana.  It makes a lot of sense on the surface, but if that were the case, Order would probably be the deity of magic, not Laermali.

“If a zombie of all things knows enough about affinities to let them bleed into others, this could be the most important discovery in magic ever.  And even he seems to credit the dungeon, not himself.”

Jana sighs at that.  “How would a backwater dungeon learn that much about magic?”

“You’ll have to ask Noynur.  The answer is surely the kind of insane thing he’d have at least suspected for a while now.”

“It sounds like the kind of crazy that’d even he’d have trouble entertaining… but there’s definitely something weird.  You can ask anyone in town about that zombie going toe to toe with Olander Wideblade, and being enough of a match to have only lost by ringout.  And any of the stronger adventurers around will talk about the wide variety of affinities he’s used to beat them in the arena.  If it was just a couple accounts of fights behind closed doors, I’d write it off, but Rocky makes his fights a public spectacle.  It’s hard to make a lie that consistent.”

Driough nods, but doesn’t reply before Rocky steps back through the shortcut, carrying an unlit pan of charcoal and a bucket of water with some rocks in it.  He holds the pan out to the elf, who takes it with a look of confusion, and sets the bucket before Jana.

“Let’s do yours first.  He’ll probably want to see how this works more than just for himself.  Grab a rock.”  The zombie reaches a gloved fist into the bucket and takes a rock for himself, and Jana belatedly follows his instruction.

“Ok… now what?” she asks, eyeing the damp stone in her hand.

“How good are you with kinetic?”

“I’m no Olander, that’s for sure.”

Rocky grunts in laughter.  “Then just try to follow along.  You’ll probably need to practice this on your own to actually get it, but watching me should let you know how to get there.  Kinetic is all about the energy of motion,” he starts, and gives the bucket a little kick to send the water jostling around inside.

“Feel the movement,” he instructs, and Jana squints at the bucket as she flexes her kinetic affinity.  She really hasn’t done much with her kinetic affinity, unlike her illusion.  She just likes illusion better.  Still, she can feel the energy sloshing around in the bucket.  She doesn’t even need to say anything before Rocky starts doing something.

“People just don’t realize there’s a lot more movement going on than it seems.”  He lets his hand with the rock fall, but the rock itself stays put, and Jana can feel him stealing the movement from the water to keep the rock suspended.  And it stays suspended, even as the water stills.

Jana stares in confusion at what she’s seeing, before her eyes widen at what she can feel.  The energy of the water is still dropping, somehow!  Before her eyes, she watches the water freeze, and even though she could feel what he was doing, she can’t explain it.  But she saw with her own eyes as he turned kinetic into ice.

Rocky smiles and plucks the stone out of the air.  “Pretty simple, once you get the hang of it.  It’s not hard to put back, either.”  The sudden kinetic energy in his punch catches Jana off guard, but happily he only punches the rock in her hand.  Instead of it shooting off and hitting her or someone else, she feels the kinetic energy get shoved into the bucket of ice, flashing it back to water in the blink of an eye.

She stares at the rock, the bucket, the zombie, her gaze flicking to each in turn as she tries to find the trick.  For his part, Rocky simply smirks.  “Get practicing.”

“Did you actually do all that with just kinetic?” asks Driough, looking amazed.  Rocky shrugs and grunts.

“Ask her.”

Driough turns to her with hope in his eyes, which at least gives her something familiar to cling to.  “He did, yeah.  I… I think I can do it, too, but it’s gonna take me a while to figure it out.”

Rocky nods and taps the pan of cold coals in Driough’s hands.  “Your turn.  Yours’ll probably be easier.  Make a purple ball of light.”

Looking equally curious and eager, he follows the instructions and produces a simple purple glowing orb.

“That’ll work.  Now, take it through the colors of the rainbow in order, through to red, and keep doing that until you have a good grasp on what you’re actually changing.”

The elf’s curiosity only increases as he does as told, the orb slowly changing color until red, before blinking to purple to repeat.  “I never really thought about what was changing when I make different colors,” he admits, watching the orb like it’s his first time actually seeing it.

It takes him several minutes before he turns his attention back to Rocky, who nods and grunts.  “Now take it past red.  There’s room past purple, too, but that’s very dangerous.  Coach says to just leave that side alone.  Past red is fine, though.”

“Why is it dangerous past purple?” asks Jana as Driough concentrates on the orb.

“More energy in the same space, but you can’t see it, and it’ll go through things without you noticing at first.  If you’re lucky, it’ll kill you fast.  If you’re unlucky, it’ll kill you slow.  Days slow, rotting you away and making you look worse than me, except you’ll feel everything.”

Jana swallows heavily as Driough does the same.  She’d bet everything she had he would have experimented with going past purple, but with a warning like that, even Driough’s curiosity could be kept in check.  The elf eyes the dim orb of red for a few more moments.

“And you said past red is safe?”

Rocky grunts.  “Not safe, you’re working on fire affinity, but at least that’s a danger people know how to deal with.  Make it brighter as you go past red, too, even if you can’t see it.  You’ll be able to feel it when you’re almost there.”

Driough nods and concentrates, the orb slowly fading from sight, and Jana can start to feel what Rocky was talking about.  It seems like maybe a gentle sunbeam at first, but soon there is undeniable heat where the orb used to be.  Driough sweats from the temperature and the effort, and Rocky grunts once more.

“Now, shove it into the coals!”

Jana flinches back as the pan of coals ignites, and Driough flinches as well.  Rocky snatches the pan before it can spill, and favors the elf with a smirk.  “Make a lick of flame.”

Driough starts to cast his usual firestarter spell, but stops as his eyes go wide.  Instead of complex finger motions and murmurs of an incantation, he simply holds up two fingers, and produces a simple little flame.

“Fire affinity…” he murmurs, staring at the flame like he’s never seen fire before.  Jana looks at the bucket and her rock, remembering what Rocky did for his demonstration for her.

“I… I’ll really get ice affinity?” she asks as Driough plays with his fire, mesmerized.  Rocky nods.

“Yeah.  It’s a bit harder going from kinetic to ice than light to fire, but on the bright side, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out how to get to fire on your own after.”

“And fire?!”

Rocky laughs and claps a gloved hand on her shoulder.  “And more, but I’ll keep those particular affinities to myself, at least until you earn another favor from Coach.”